NORWICH – A tractor trailer carrying dozens of pallets of wood pellets caught fire as it drove down State Highway 12 Monday morning, when a bearing in a rear tire overheated and burst into flames.
The rig’s driver, Calyle Beckhorn, said he was on his way to Clinton to deliver the pellets to an area Agway when he heard a loud “boom.”
The incident occurred at about 8:06 a.m., a quarter mile north the Halfway House bridge. It interrupted both lanes of traffic for about 45 minutes.
“At first I thought I blew a tire, but when I looked into my mirror I saw smoke coming up,” Beckhorn said.
Beckhorn stopped the 18-wheeler immediately and retrieved his emergency fire extinguisher from the truck’s cabin. He sprayed the area the smoke seemed to be coming from and quelled some flames, but as the extinguisher ran dry, the truck continued to smolder.
“When things get this hot, they tend to start back up and I had nothing left to fight it with,” said Beckhorn.
As fire crews were en route to the scene, Beckhorn unhitched his cab from the load of wood stove pellets he was transporting. Flames then began to creep up from a joint near the wheel and caught one of the pallets, wrapped in packaging plastic, on fire.
Just as the material began to burn, the Norwich Fire Department arrived.
Fire Chief Tracy Chawgo said crews pulled off some of the burning debris and quickly put out the fire. In total, Beckhorn estimated that only two of the nearly two dozen pallets were damaged.
“They got here just in time. For a minute there I was worried I might have to watch the whole thing burn up,” he said.
Chawgo said no one was injured in the fire. The New York State Police responded and reported no tickets would be issued over the incident, saying an equipment failure was to blame.